Homework
by StuckLikeGlue
Summary: Charlotte and Cooper do what they do best to try to fix what they do worst. Will be rated M in future chapters, so please subscribe or search by character with M rating for updates!


"Are we going to talk about any of this, or...?"

"Or what?"

"Or are you just going to sit there like that."

Dr. Marsh watched the couple on the sofa in front of her: him with his head in his hands, sighing his frustration on one side of the sofa, her pressed all the way on the other side, body buzzing with pent up anxiety. They'd been in pre-marital couples therapy for three weeks now, after making a pact to deal with their issues before walking down the aisle. It had not been smooth sailing.

"'Just gonna sit there like that.'" Charlotte scoffed. "Nice."

"Well, it hasn't exactly been a productive hour, Char..."

"Yeah, well... This is stupid. I don't even know why we're here."

Charlotte hated therapy, and was perfectly up-front about that from the beginning. It was her idea, apparently, but she still insisted that the only reason she was doing this was because she couldn't think of any other way to fix things, and she didn't want to lose another marriage. She also didn't seem to want to talk about her first marriage, or her relationship with Cooper. Or her parents. Or her job. Or anything else. Or so she said. Underneath, Dr. Marsh was fairly certain Charlotte wanted to talk about all of it and just didn't know how.

Cooper, on the other hand, had no problem letting them both know that he wanted to talk about everything. He wasn't the best listener, Dr. Marsh had noticed, but she was pretty sure he genuinely wanted to be, and that he genuinely thought he was. She also knew that he wanted to make this work, badly enough that he walked a fine line between encouraging Charlotte and losing his patience with her.

Like right now: "If you don't want to be here..." he started, carefully, and Charlotte cut him off.

"I want to be here."

"Okay, well, you just said it was stupid and you didn't know why-."

"I didn't mean – forget it."

Cooper took a deep breath, and tried again. "Look, we're here. With Dr. Marsh. To talk out our problems."

"Yes, we are."

"...So why aren't we talking?."

"Nothin' to say right now," Charlotte clipped, and Dr. Marsh knew that wasn't true.

"Nothing at all?" she coaxed, earning herself a glare. If there was anything Charlotte hated more than therapy, it was being ganged up on in therapy. Dr. Marsh watched as Charlotte crossed her arms more tightly and lifted her chin.

"No. Nothin' at all."

"Char," Cooper sighed.

"What?" Blonde locks swayed as she turned her head to aim that glare at him. "What do you want me to say, Cooper? You want me to say that I'm still hurt? Fine. I'm still hurt. You _hurt _me, okay? You broke my heart into a million itty-bitty pieces, and then you stomped on 'em a bit, and then you tried to pick 'em all back up and make it better, but it's not all better, Cooper. That's why we're here, in therapy. Workin' on our issues."

"But we can't do that if you won't _talk_-"

"I talk. I'm talkin' right now."

"Yeah, as little as you possibly can in order to not seem totally uncooperative, and sometimes not even that. And fighting isn't talking. We're supposed to be _talking._"

Dr. Marsh watched Charlotte look down to her hands and unfold her arms so she could twist the flashy diamond on her left ring finger around and around and around. It was what she did when she's agitated. It was also what she did when she was about to talk.

Sure enough, her voice had less of an edge when she finally said, "This is hard for me, okay? I'm not a talker. That's not... That's just not how I..." She sucked in a slow breath, frustrated now, and probably with herself more than anything else. Dr. Marsh wondered if Cooper noticed how hard Charlotte tried, how scared she really was to let herself be open with him. To really admit how deep her issues ran. "I hate therapy, always have, and I'm not the best communicator. I'm good at sex, not conversation. You want someone to blow the top off your head, I'm your girl. You want someone to tell you her deepest, darkest feelings... that's just not me."

"Well, we're not here for sex, we're here to talk," Cooper pointed out. "The sex won't make anything better."

Charlotte mouth pressed into a thin line, her arms crossing tightly again, and she gave a short nod. "Right. Of course. The sex is meaningless. Useless. Doesn't accomplish a damned thing."

"That's not what I said," Cooper sighed, and he would probably have said more, but Charlotte cut him off again.

"No, what you said is that the sex is all I ever want, but did you ever think that maybe there's a reason for that?" Charlotte bit, her voice going a little thin as she leveled him with those piercing green eyes again.

Bingo. That was the opening Dr. Marsh had been waiting for. That was an issue they could delve into.

"I think we should talk about the sex," Dr. Marsh suggested. "Because clearly there are some issues there."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that's one of the only places we have the least issues," Cooper dismissed, and Dr. Marsh watched Charlotte's face harden even more, her gaze dropping to a spot on the carpet in front of them. "The trust and communication are our problem areas."

They'd found a disconnect.

"I think that may not be as true as you think," Dr. Marsh suggested. "Charlotte, would you say you agree?"

She didn't answer.

"Charlotte?"

It took a minute, but she finally looked up. "What?"

"You've brought up sex, and comments Cooper has made about sex, several times in the last few weeks. I don't think that's on accident."

Charlotte looked back down at whatever spot of lint on the floor had become so interesting.

"Is there something you want to say?"

She started tapping her foot, a quick staccato against the carpeted floor, and her fingers tightened on her her biceps, but she stayed mute.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," Dr. Marsh surmised, and Charlotte lifted her chin defiantly. "But we'll work our way around to whatever that is. First, let's just get a few basics out of the way. Cooper, would you say your sex life has been active since you got back together?"

He hazarded a glance at Charlotte, hesitated a little, but answered, "Yes. It's a little less frequent, I guess – maybe even 'considerably' less frequent – but we've both been really busy, with Dell's death, and wedding planning, and dealing with things at work, it's just been... stressful. At the end of the day, sometimes we just want to sleep..." He was glancing Charlotte's way again, unsure. It sounded like the sex life wasn't as issue-free as they thought.

"Charlotte?" she coaxed. "How about you? What do you think about your sex life lately?"

She took a deep breath, let it out in a whoosh like she'd changed her mind about opening her mouth. She shook her head, tapped her foot, took another deep breath, and then finally answered, her voice uncharacteristically quiet. "I miss bein' with him. I liked it better when we could barely go two days without keepin' our hands off each other. I just... I like when..." She closed her eyes, frustrated again, and took another deep breath. Both Cooper and Dr. Marsh gave her time to find her words. She surprised them by opening her eyes, and turning to face Cooper for the first time in 47 minutes. "I'm not a good talker, I'm not a good communicator, but I'm good at sex. I feel _close_ to you during sex. That's when-" Her voice caught, and she bit down so hard on her lower lip that Dr. Marsh saw the skin go white where her teeth dug in. Cooper reached for Charlotte's hand, and held it.

"That's when what, Char?" he coaxed.

"That's when I feel closest to you," she said slowly, as she tried to keep her voice even. "So when you say that all I want to do is screw, our problem isn't sex, it's communication... you're right. But isex _is _ communication. Even when it's freaky and kinky, it's..." She shifted on the sofa, ran a hand through her hair absently. "What you get from talkin', I get from sex. Okay? That's why I always want sex. Because I suck at talkin', but God, I can show you how I feel about you with my body. I can be close with that. I can apologize with that, or be mad with that, or love you like crazy with that. It's the most intimate thing we do, and I love it. And when we're not doin' it, I just feel... lonely. Disconnected. When we lose the sex – my heart breaks, Coop. It's like lookin' at you through glass, like I can't ever live up to what you—" She cut herself off again, took a deep breath in and out, and Dr. Marsh took the time to note that Cooper was listening to Charlotte. Really listening. All his attention was on her face, and his mouth was drawn into a frown of half confusion, half sadness, and he had her hand wrapped in both of his now. More than that, he wasn't interrupting her, which is a big step for them. Sometimes Dr. Marsh could barely get a word in edgewise with the way these two talked over each other. "I just don't know how else to connect right now. I suck at all the other ways, and we're such a mess. But I'm tryin', I promise I'm tryin'. I'm here, right? I'm tryin'."

A buzzer went off, shrill and sharp, and all three of them startled. "I'm sorry, guys," Dr. Marsh says with a little wince. "Your time is up."

Charlotte deflated a little, and Dr. Marsh genuinely felt bad about cutting things off today. She hated to leave them in the middle of a potential breakthrough like this, but her eleven o'clock was an emergency session, and couldn't be pushed back or rescheduled.

"But this is good – this is something we'll pick up on next week," the doctor assured. "Until then, I want to give you guys a little assignment: have more sex."

Cooper's brows shot up; Charlotte's drew in. "Seriously?" he asked.

"Seriously," Dr. Marsh confirmed. "Every day, at least once, for the next thirty days. Whether you want to or not. If you fight, do it twice."

The corner of Charlotte's mouth quirked up just a little bit. "Our assignment is to have lots of sex? We've done that before, we're still a mess."

"But it means a lot to you," the doctor pointed out. "You just said so. And I'm going to wager that's not a conversation the two of you have ever had before today. I'm going to wager he didn't know that you equate sex with communication."

Cooper shook his head; Charlotte twisted her engagement ring again.

"You're struggling with settling back in together – we've talked about that. Take this opportunity, knowing what you know now, knowing that for Charlotte the sex is about communicating emotional intimacy as much as physical pleasure-" Charlotte shifted a little uncomfortably. "Take this opportunity to connect that way, every day. If something comes up that pushes you away from each other, double your effort to connect. Once a day, every day, whether you're in the mood or not. Whether you're too tired or not. Whether you're mad, or hurt, or happy, or devastated by something. Take the time to be physically intimate this month. Focus on that."

Dr. Marsh watched as Charlotte and Cooper looked at each other, and scowled. And then nodded their agreement.

"Alright. We'll have more sex."

They seemed a little unsure as they left, but it didn't escape the doctor's notice the Cooper settled his hand between Charlotte's shoulder blades and gave her back a lazy rub as they left. Considering the hour they'd had, she considered that a sign of improvement.


End file.
